Examples of Suspected Fraud or Fake Emails

[PayPal_Andy]

Hey Everybody!

In an effort to make things easier to find and research, I'm going to consolidate as many threads as possible where we have examples of people trying to defraud hard working sellers (Craigslist emails, 'PayPal' emails asking you to send money outside of PayPal, etc).  This will also be used as a master thread for future posts regarding this same situation.

When you post your examples here, please remember to not include last names or contact information of whoever is sending these emails.  There's no way to confirm if that person has been defrauded as well and the name is being used fraudulently.

Thanks for your cooperation and remember, keep the conversation productive, on task, and above all, keep it clean. I know these things can be difficult and frustrating, but bleep filled posts or posts that look like government redacted files will never benefit anyone. 😄

Andy

[Seymour-]

Nope, sorry, they scammed you for a relatively small amount of cash. They got your email to send you the fake PayPal message from you.

[Yanira2]

Hi the same thing happened to me except it was too late for me.. I posted my Sony camera on eBay and got a response from a potential buyer he said he would pay me through pay pal and received an email saying the payment Was pending and it’s looked legit. I already sent him the camera next day delivery but I have yet received any money. I received an email the following day say he had to send 320 in order to be credited...keep in mind I was asking for 680 for the camera. I truly believe that this was genuine but now it’s three days and i received nothing. I got another email saying that he had been over charged and that I have to refund him the money through western union. I did the first time when the email read that he had to send an additional 320. Also I got an email saying that PayPal cannot refund the money to the buyer because it was already pending in my account has anybody else gotten this? Because I’m pretty sure PayPal would not do that.

[kernowlass]

@Yanira2

Its a scam i'm afraid. The paypal emails were spoofs.

Paypal NEVER tell you to send an item before the payment is showing in your paypal account.

Paypal do not tell you to send trackable, they advise it for selling protection but it is not compulsory.

Paypal NEVER expect you to use a rival money transfer service ie western union or moneygram.

[Rome]

I am new to paypal, and I too am ex military. I also almost fell for this scam for the same reasons.  One of the things that saved me is recognizing that the pay pal logo was different, as well as the fact that the name BOB **removed** was associated with the first suspicious activity. as well as the third, he also used a phone number to text me that i could not call back even to leave a msg.  the texter is apparently using a MAGIC JACK phone number, which is nearly impossible to pinpoint a location on.

Rome 

[zins]

Has someone gotten the offer from a 'military' person deployed to purchase their item and have a courier pick it up?

[lhull]

I just received one. Wants to pay through Paypal and have an "agent" pick it up.  Very poor grammer and claims to be in the marines, always out to sea.............  

[tbuns_905]

The "scammers" are out there.  Just encountered 2 such frauds.   2 different HI priced items up for sale on CraigList in AZ.  Within seconds of posting, got 3 offers, all with the pay thru PayPal, needing to front money for the shipping sendind via Money Gram.   Even had one person say instead of using the Money Gram on-line process to send the shipping fees, I needed to go to WalMart cuz they know how to handle these transactions.   Tempted to call the Text # the offers came in on.   Suspect untraceable burner phones.   

[DD51]

I think I have delt with the very same scammers as you were talking about in Arizona. My husband is a OTR Truck Driver, and doesn't get home time enough to deal with alot of things; like the selling of his Jeep. Which is what I've been doing and put it on craigslist. Within the first day I started receiving txt msgs from a man who was off shore and was from Michigan supposedly. Long story short; he too tried to get me to send shippers fees through money gram, ask friends or family to temporarily loan me the cash if I didn't have it, push push push! When I finally had enough and told him there would be no deal... he began sending me angry and threatning text messages and I ended up calling the police. Of course they couldn't anything because as far as we knew he lived in another state etc... etc... I too have received the same kind of emails and such, which is what brought me here.

[PKodon]

I recieved an email (it showed up in my spam folder), supposedly from PayPal (but not from the normal service@paypal email), stating that someone had possibly accessed my account, and thus my account was limited until the dispute was settled.

It had a dispute number listed, and a link to follow to deal with it. When I followed the link, the site I went to was not PayPal, but it had a clone of the PayPal website (I checked the address before doing anything else, then closed the page).

As a double check, I logged into the real paypal site and checked to see if there were any messages regarding disputes. None were listed.

I know most people using PayPal are probably smart enough not to log in on this fradulent site, but I wanted to put the warning out about it, as it did not seem to be listed here. (I guess my question is, have any of you recieved this email?)

PK

[mamr]

Hi, Just wanted people to be aware of this scam. I received a phone call from my friend about an hour ago. She received an email just like the one you mentioned. She entered all her info thinking she was on PayPal and verifying her account. They hit her bank account for two transactions totaling $600.00. Her bank flagged her account because the transactions were suspicious. They were from Africa. She now can't even use her cards linked to her bank account . So please be careful when answering emails. Don't give your info out without checking into your PayPal account for any messages that are actually from them.